Right Brain

 

I just finished reading My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. She is a brain scientist who was able to notice what was happening when she experienced a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. One attraction of the book is her remarkable account of the stroke itself. Even more fascinating for me, however, is her descriptions of what it felt like to be totally reliant on her right hemisphere. She experienced an "innate awarenesss that I was the miraculous power of life....simply a being of light radiating life into the world." This filled her with strong sense of peace and joy. She felt at one with the universe.
Near the end of the book Taylor talks about ways that we might experience this bliss. I found myself thinking that the centering prayer that I do each morning may be a way of quieting the left brain and moving more into the right brain where I experience God as inexpressible Being. Then after talking to a couple last night about the book, I found myself thinking that I have done something similar in retiring. In no longer being responsible for many administrative tasks I have moved away from a lot of left brain activity and am spending more time in right brain awareness. Peace and joy and bliss.
Part way through the book I realized that I had heard Jill Bolte Taylor's story before. Several months ago one of my sisters had forwarded to me a dramatic and moving 20 minute talk that Taylor gives on YouTube about her experience.